


The Knight in the Pale Ore Mask

by brushspell



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Human AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brushspell/pseuds/brushspell
Summary: The Pale King's cruelty far outlasted even his kingdom, and those that remain are left to sift through the ashes of his demise. In the wake of his death we find them - a princess between two kingdoms, a man seeking answers without questions, a god hidden in mortal skin and the knight in the pale ore mask. If the infection is gone and everyone remains, who do they have left to fight but themselves?A Human AU where everyone lives, and no one knows why. Yet.
Relationships: Hornet & The Knight (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 329





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings: Body Horror, Injury, Hollow Knight being referred to as it
> 
> AU notes: Basically PK is a bastard as always but in this AU setting he basically dunked babies in void and it got him loads of bad PR when he tried to pass them off as advanced kingsmolds (the bastard)

It is quiet in the Nailsmith’s hut, save for the clanging of his hammer. Once, there were people. People going in and out, people talking, people chattering. A normal amount. Patrons, knights, nobles, people wanting knives and cookware. Then blades, only blades, blades again and again and again. While the world fell around him, the Nailsmith forged blades and only blades - nails upon nails upon nails, named and modeled after the King’s own weapon of choice…

In truth, the Nailsmith found both a name and a calling in them. Though perhaps that was always a weak word for it. After all, he had taken so long to stare at the same image of the royal blade, day after day, forging replica after replica. In truth, what had taken root in his heart was more like an obsession. The Nailsmith… for his name to mean anything, he didn’t just have to make blades. He had to make  _ that _ blade. The King’s blade, of purest Pale Ore…

Only then would he be satisfied.

The Nailsmith stirs from his reveries when he hears shouting, sharp orders and annoyed syllables snapping against his door. From the sound of things, an older sister shepherding a younger charge - a family member slow to obey. No doubt someone half infected already.

He doesn’t want to be the one to tell them. Not this time. Too many lost travelers, not understanding when the sickness takes one of their group. Let them go, let them go. The Nailsmith cannot hear them above his hammer. He does not want to hear them above his work. The work that keeps him focused, keeps him pure.

“Hello- will you stop that for just one- no, I’m not going to leave you, I just-” The young woman sticks her head in, and the Nailsmith carefully lays down his hammer as she glares at him behind a white mask. A native, then? Someone superstitious enough to believe that the old charms will protect you from the sickness.

“You. You’re the source of the hammering - you’re a smith, then, I take it?”

The Nailsmith motions around him. To the anvil in front of him, to the walls lined with tools, to the nail in front of him, to the hammer on his forge.

“Hmm. Yes, I believe you could say that. People do tend to put ‘Nail’ in front, though.”

“Great. I need something done, so - come on, in the door - duck down, come on now-”

The Nailsmith watches the young woman dance, crimson cloak flaring as she pulls and yanks and pulls on a black hand. The Nailsmith makes the mistake of focusing on the young woman - specifically on her back. He’s admiring her nail - or rather, her needle. A thin option, more of a foil than anything, but beautiful, beautifully made. Someone must have loved this young woman very much to give her such a deadly sting.

Yes, it’s a mistake to watch her, because the… thing, she pulls in, is far more concerning. He should have stopped her at the door, should have recognized the pure black of the hand as not the leather of a gauntlet nor the sheer satin of silk, but the strained and clarified shadow of a…

The Nailsmith isn’t sure. It’s too tall to be one of the pitiful Empty Golems - those vaunted Vessels that the King assured everyone were mere husks of void like the Kingsmolds that came before them, empty and without feeling. They’d served as guards and seekers of corruption, for a time - eerie little watchhounds of the king, until someone had removed the white helm to find not the swirling abyss of empty armor, but the pitiful eyes of a child staring back…

This looks like one of those children, stretched far, stretched way too far. Long and wide and broad and wild, like something left out in the rain. It staggers towards the Nailsmith on uncertain legs, and he can feel it’s gaze upon him. It is no Kingsmold. There is intelligence there, intent in the hollows of that helm.

The Nailsmith is already backing away on instinct as it grows closer. One shuffling footstep in front of the other. He feels his back hit the wall, sees the thing looming, gazing down at him, ragged and terrible, and all at once the Nailsmith is struck with awe and fear. Elemental, there is something elemental about this creature, as if it’s very presence fills the room with pressure…

And then it seems to bow, coming forward, head laying down, pressure bursting like a bubble as it lays it’s head on the anvil. Sedate. Calm. Silent, limbs dragging and gangly like seaweed on the shore.

Dully, belatedly, the Nailsmith realizes that it is staring at him expectantly. Head on the anvil. Head on the anvil, hammer nearby. Empty eyes begging. Open. Pleading.

The Nailsmith feels his hands begin to sweat as he gains an inkling of what it might want. He can almost see it, too. His hammer, coming down cleanly, into that darkness, scattering it like liquid, banishing the cursed shade back to the abyss. It would be a mercy, wouldn’t it? A kindness. The right thing to do. And yet...

“...No. I…” He brings a hand to his beard and runs his fingers through it’s wiry length. “...I… whatever it… you… want…”

“...Knight.” The Nailsmith snaps from his trance as the woman - the sister, sighs, running a hand down the thing’s back. It shudders at her touch. Shudders and… somehow, somehow he knows those eyes are closed now. Closed, and the pressure is gone, relieved from him. “You’re scaring the poor man. Pick your head up - he’s drawing all the wrong conclusions.”

“...And what,” The Nailsmith asks, his mouth dry. “might the right be the right conclusions?”

The woman straightens, as much as that’s possible. Certainly, she seems to grow a bit taller, pulling her head back and her chin up, staring down her nose at the Nailsmith, as if noticing them for the first time.

“We’re here to remove their mask.” A pause, like the slightest of missteps in a dance. “...Well. It’s more of a helmet. Really.”

The Nailsmith takes a breath, deep and shuddering, one he hadn’t realized he was holding. He looks to the helmet, to the head, lain on the anvil - his anvil. Smooth. Perfectly smooth at first glance, but here and there, yes, he can see marks, signs of welding? Ah. A single piece. The poor thing must have gotten stuck.

“Hmm… All right. Lift your head up and bend down so I can get a look at you.”

He thinks the thing doesn’t hear him at first. Thinks that maybe it only responds to the sister. But no. It’s just slow to move, slow to start, swaying on creaking joints, bending forward. Into a knight’s pose. On one knee. Trained. Honored.

What is he looking at? What, exactly, is the Nailsmith looking at, under that faded cloak, under that intense pressure? Because it moves like a kingsmold given purpose, stands like one of the Five Great Knights, and stares… stares like a Vessel. Like the little one, the empty child that wanders into his shop now and again, to dump geo on his counter...

The helm. The Nailsmith forces himself to look at it. He can see now, that it’s too tight, even if it is finely wrought. It has an almost cruel design, one that seems almost to have been put on too early in the thing’s life - outgrown and outstripped. It pinches into black flesh, and while finely wrought and durable, the worker was too hasty with their work as if time were pressing in. But that doesn’t matter, because they’ve sanded down the ore... The Ore. The  _ Pale _ Ore....

“...White Wyrm Ascending…!” The Nailsmith breathes, stumbling back. “Is… is that helm made of  _ pure Pale Ore?! _ ”

“Maybe. Will it be a problem?” The sister is looking at his nails. Back turned. Somehow, the Nailsmith knows she is still watching him. The thing. The knight, is still staring at him, silent and impassive. Subdued, switched off.

“It’ll be the very abyss to pry off, but it should be fine. Pale Ore tends to bend before it breaks or even warps, is all.”

“Hmm.” Is all the sister has to say. It’s a strangely loaded “Hmm.” Frankly, the Nailsmith isn’t sure which is worse. The knight or the sister. Probably the knight. Definitely the knight...

He turns his attention back to the helm… and it dawns on him slowly. Like rising water around his throat. The way the helm is constructed, the faint lines of the hammering. The imprints around the collar.

This helmet… wasn’t made and then slipped on. It wasn’t even made and then outgrown, though certainly the knight who bears it is now too large for it. It was hammered into place, piece by piece, one scrap of Pale Ore at a time, around the knight’s head. The knight before him… either had to _ choose _ to stay still for the whole procedure, as hammers banged and imprisoned, as fires blazed hot and forges shaped and scraped and sizzled around their very skin…

...Or they had no choice.

And the Nailsmith, as he reaches for his pliers and slowly, carefully presses them into the very edge of the mask, taking up Pale Ore and the barest hint of something black, isn’t sure which is more terrifying.

“...Is there something wrong?” The sister speaks, and her voice is sharp. The Nailsmith has lingered too long in thought for her liking.

“Hmm. Just some peculiarities in how the helm was made is all.” He remarks, his voice pretty level, all things considered. “It seems… it might have been constructed, or at least finished around their head.”

“It does not surprise me to hear that.”

The sister does not turn her head, but there is something in her voice. Bitterness, perhaps. Frustration. Not quite anger, but something hot and sharp and close. Either way, the Nailsmith sets his hands to work, so as not to get any more entrenched in her affairs than he is simply by way of having his tools in her… golem’s? Sibling’s? Pet’s? ...Knight’s helmet.

For minutes, there is only silence and the soft creak of twisting steel. Pale Ore bends slowly, gradually, over time. Even under immense pressure, even with repeated bashing, even under harsh use, it refuses to do anything else. The only thing that will change it is willpower, willpower, a steady hand, and time.

Time enough to think. Time enough to see, yes. The Nailsmith is pulling up… void? That’s what it’s called, what the people call the stuff that leaks out the king’s constructs. Perfectly safe, except in large quantities. Except, no one ever tells you what a “large quantity” is, and you think it doesn’t matter, until your pliers slip, and dips into “skin” and it runs in a channel on your floor, spilling black motes and the smell of mold and miasma and somehow, the distant stink of the sea into the air…

The creature is silent. Utterly, absolutely so. Their silence is sucking, swallowing. But the Nailsmith can feel, as he works, a certain stirring. A restlessness. The crack, the seam he works in the mask, grows deeper and deeper, and the thing in front of him grows if anything, more silent, but he can feel it in the air. Impatience. Anticipation. Desire.

He will die here. The Nailsmith can feel it. He will die here, with this helm in his hands. In a way, it is almost correct. For defiling such a thing, should he not be slain?

His hands are shaking when the helm is two thirds broken. He takes his tools away, reaches up to remove the helm, but the knight is already moving, their hands wrapping around the gently sloping horns to pull up, up and away…   
  
The thing  _ breathes _ and the Nailsmith  _ chokes.  _ This, this is too much void, void spilling out, so much so that the Nailsmith has to rush outside, head spinning, to cough and cough and wheeze on his knees - and he blearily realizes that the sister is already outside, shouting, that the thing is throwing open windows, that the motes are dissipating, the void dispersing…

And when he catches his breath and stares inside, he sees them. One of the King’s woeful children - a Vessel. Empty, white eyes. Limbs too long, a face devoid of features, like a black silk bag pulled taut over someone’s entire body leaving only suggestions, and a head full of rank, swirling black hair that waves and dances like seaweed…

“...Hmm. I didn’t know they could grow up.” The Nailsmith murmurs. He hears the sister laugh, even above the clatter of geo. Counting. Payment. Of course he’ll be paid. He’d better, for a harrowing job like this…

“They don’t get to, generally.” She holds out a bag. Bulging, thick. He takes it. The Vessel moves to take the helm, and he shakes his head. It’s coated with void, and something almost red. Blood? Can they bleed? Can any of them bleed, coated head to toe like that in the abyss?

“It won’t fit. It’s too small for you, now. You’ll have to get it converted if you want to keep wearing it, but... “ The Nailsmith shrugs. He could probably do the job, but…

The way the vessel is staring at him. He feels… bad now. Bad for ever having been afraid. Because without the visage of that frightful helm, he can see how hurt it looks, how tired, how inquisitive. Like a child. But it didn’t look like a child, not before.

“I understand, Nailsmith. You make weapons, not armor. I think I know someone who can help.” The sister replies smartly, stepping in where words fail him. The Knight walks forward. Slowly. He can see now that the movements of their body are not just clumsy and awkward. They are painful. The vessel is wounded. The sister is caretaking…

They are both at his door. They are in fact, all outside his door. The void is almost gone. The night is dark. His home is bright, and that little splash of red looks so, so small against the shadows… The Nailsmith makes a snap decision.

“...Hmm… A minute?” He calls out, softly. Two heads turn. Only one set of eyes glow in the dark, faintly luminous like the light of lumaflies. “Wherever you are going, rest here for the night.”

“There is no need.” The sister replies, her voice clipped and short, but the Nailsmith shakes his head, thinking quickly.

“Your needle. It is finely made… let me look at it, tonight. Consider it a part of payment.”

She pauses. Considers… and then nods. She leads the vessel back. They follow her, like a lost child. So much about them seems lost. Two children, in the night.

The least the Nailsmith can do is feed them and shelter them and hope it will be enough.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hornet brings the Hollow Knight to speak with the Mask Maker and reminisces on meetings past.

The Mask Maker is so called because he is an artist defined by his work. He has to be - those with softer hearts and sentimentality, those fops of fancy who only dabbled without true passion were long ago consumed by the infection, burned through like the rotting, punk wood they so resembled.

Well, that and the Mask Maker is one of the Weavers. A poor one, it’s true - neither archivist nor loom-worker nor hunter, neither austere nor hungry, but still driven, still sharp in his pursuits, even if the focus of them is slightly to the side. Certainly driven enough to take pride in them, in his work, in sculpting faces for those born faceless and for those who might turn to symbols and totems to ward away the gentle grip of the infection plaguing their dreams…

But alas, he is a poor weaver indeed. For when he sees little Hornet in his workshop, dragging one of the king’s nightmares along with her, he does not shoo her away. Instead he tilts his face, his hands still working, his painted eyes spiraling in different directions and asks, with the quirk of a nervous smile in his voice,

“Little Hornet, are you sure you wish to bring that in here?”

To which the young weaver, always stubborn, raises her head high, already carrying herself with the arrogance of the a queen, simply replies,

“I will bring the Knight wherever I wish, for they are my companion and a sibling of mine besides.” Hornet lowers her head, and the Mask Maker feels her gaze, intent and burning. So like his own, so like her mother’s, so like the gaze of the few survivors of Hallownest, writhing and desperate, as they are. Behind her, the shade steps inside, ducking to find their way into the workshop. Despite their size, their height, it is Hornet who bristles, protectively. “You will not speak to them as an object, Mask Maker… and though I will pardon your rudeness this once, I will tolerate it no more. Treat them with respect and as an equal, not an enemy - the Pale King is dead, and even were he not, he is no friend of the Knight’s.”

The Mask Maker hears the hard line in her voice, sees the quiet determination in her eyes, shadowed as they are by her mask… and he simply smiles under his own. He sets his tools aside, cupping his hands under his elbows, and leans forward to gaze at Hornet and her companion.

“It sounds as if you have a story to tell, Little Hornet.” He motions for her to sit, for her sibling to sit… and turns to put the kettle on. “So please. Do tell. I could stand to give these hands a break.”

“Don’t lie to me, Mask Maker. I know your hands are never still.” Hornet scoffs. But she softens, even as she takes a seat on the meager chair offered. Her companion only settles when tugged, when she reaches up to pull a gauntleted hand, to gently guide them down. “You need not still them for our sake.”

The Mask Maker chuckles softly, plucking up his work again with visible relief. While it’s true that he would have settled them to listen to Hornet, to give the princess his full attention, it really does help to keep them busy.

“Very well, then. Weave your tale for me, little Hornet.”

\--

When Hornet had first found the Knight in the Black Egg Temple, she had taken them for an intruder. It had been only a brief nap, a short respite, the faintest of dreams… and the Temple itself, in it’s stark, almost cavernous construction, has always been a place that holds a strange, dreamlike quality for her. Even if she would never admit it, she’d always found a strange, almost uneasy sort of peace there - the dragging respite of heavy limbs and dragging eyelids and a body suddenly lodging complaints now that one is in a place of relative calm. She would never call the Temple homey, no. But it feels like… perhaps, a good place to lie down and rest forever. Perhaps even to die.

So she was not at all pleased to find the pale mask of the Knight gazing down upon her when she’d opened her eyes. Like an intrusion in a private space. Like a stalker gazing upon her in her sleep. She’d screamed. She’d attacked, needle lancing out, limbs moving on instinct -

And to her horror, the Knight had let her skewer them. Five, six, seven times in the span of a breath. Their body shuddered with her blows, but they did not wince nor falter - and though black blood and void spilled forth, staining the temple floor a deeper pitch, they did not scream. Instead they sank down, like a doll discarded, lying limp and seemingly dead as Hornet caught her breath.

Only in the quiet afterwards did she have the time to look around, to take in the Temple, to see the door opened from within - seals still intact, masks still brightly lit. The Dreamers still alive, the Hollow Knight missing from their chains, their chambers within, their heavy cloak and pauldrons strewn about the floor… the Hollow Knight, the final seal, the prison of the Radiance…

Bleeding void out on the floor in front of her. Silent and unmoving. Dead by her hand.

Hornet screams again, louder - and even as she scrabbles to push herself up, the Knight follows suit, shakily bearing their weight all on one arm, rolling up their heavy head to look at her with… with betrayal. On their chest, she can still see the wounds, oozing, almost accusatory as they seep and seep, rolling with slow, awful vitality.

“I’m… I’m sorry.” She mutters. Can they hear? Can they speak? Does it matter? None of the others have spoken. But then, this one is special, aren’t they? Numbly, she already flutters forward, pulling bandages from her pack to dress the wounds, rolling them under the filthy rags they bear on their body. It will not be enough, and she knows it. They need more powerful magic. More powerful magic that she doesn’t have on her. But she knows where to gather it. “...A hot… A hot springs. We’re going. Come.”

She doesn’t think of what it means to take the Hollow Knight from the Temple. She doesn’t think about the open door. The only thing that matters is that they are still alive, that they might not be if she does not act, now. She grabs a gauntleted hand, greyed, almost black, where once it was white, and shudders at the feel of it. Cold, dead. But alive. There isn’t a pulse, but there is something else. A rhythm, almost like a song, coursing through. Not alive, by traditional definitions, no...

Time alone does not do things like this to… well, what is ostensibly a person. Only the gods could be so cruel.

There are few who know the magic of hot springs, but many who have been touched by them. By the unbridled vitality of the earth, welling forth in great gouts like droplets of pure blood. Fools would tell you that they are a blessing of the Pale King, that their pallid waters are his kindness and compassion. Hornet knows better. The hot springs far predate the king, and it is far more likely that the old wyrm’s vitality simply flows from the same source than it is that the hot springs themselves run from his rather lacking charity.

What scares Hornet the most is not that the Hollow Knight does not offer up resistance to her, but the fact that they do almost nothing but follow her commands. Every step is ordered, every movement channeled towards her direction, even when it means falling to one knee, even when it means scraping and scrabbling like a common beast, blackened blood pooling to slicken and impede their way. She has no doubt that if she’d asked the Hollow Knight to stop their heart, the Knight would simply die, then and there, blown out by her words like a candle before a careless breath.

But she does not ask this of them. She simply guides them onwards, through the sculpted arches of the Crossroads, towards the gently pluming mist of the hot springs. In the dimly lit darkness beyond the swirling waters Hornet can see massive stone faces looming out of the shadows forever gushing water from gaping mouths. Mask like and wondrous, she wonders if the Mask Maker took inspiration from here, or if the ancients who carved them took inspiration from masks. As she ponders this, the Hollow Knight staggers forward unbidden and slumps gracelessly into the life-giving waters face first.

Numbly, Hornet watches the Knight sink for a few moments, before registering shock and alarm. Can they drown? Will they drown? Does it matter, when she won’t let them? Already she is hauling at a massive arm, yanking them up as they burble softly into the waves, muddying the waters like an oil slick with their blood, giving an inhuman keen like whalesong.

“Listen.” She hisses, irritably, more from frustration than anything as she hauls a massive shoulder back towards the natural sloped edge of the springs. “I’ve just gotten you here. At least wait a few minutes before trying to drown yourself, okay?”

The Hollow Knight lifts their head, and in the streaming waters Hornet finds herself close to that mask, to the eyeholes that she thought were simply empty. Not so. Not so. The waters have washed away what she thought were shadows, what she thought were deep holes. No, the Hollow Knight’s eyes are much closer than that. Even now as she watches, the knight’s own dark blood seeps forth like a clot, shrouding them in darkness. A mask far too tight, far too close. The scent catches her, and Hornet nearly gags. How long have they been trapped like this, imprisoned, not only in the temple, but in their own skin…?

She watches the look they give her. Silent. Imploring. Begging. Mild. Sedate. Defeated.

“This will not stand.” She concludes. But it will have to wait, for in their weakened and wounded condition, neither will the Hollow Knight.

\--

“I see.” The Mask Maker concludes with a mild tilt of their head, “That is how you came by your curious companion, and why they are…”

“Unmasked.” Hornet finishes, her tone sharp. She follows the Mask Maker’s gaze, even under their own mask. To the Hollow Knight’s own skin, blackened by curse, seeping raw void. Toxic and volatile.

There is a heavy clatter as Hornet places two cracked halves onto the table between them - the pale ore helm. Even now, traces of liquid void swirl inside, barely contained, sizzling and roiling but never eating through - white on black, dangerous beyond belief.

“I trust you understand what I want.” Hornet says with a level tone. “But I’ll spell it out just to be clear - another mask to keep the Knight safe, another face for my sibling… only this time, make it one that fits.”

“I will do this.” The Mask Maker replies, looking first to Hornet and then to the Hollow Knight. “But first there is someone you must see. Someone who has long awaited you reunion.”

“Who?” Hornet’s answer is sharp, probing - and the Mask Maker’s face betrays nothing, his hands rolling forward slowly to collect the shards of the pale ore helm, his fingers moving carefully not to brush the dangerous traces of void. Still, there is almost a certain hesitancy to him now, a caution to his breath that was not there before. “...Your mother. The Queen. She has called for you.”

The room seems to draw in breath. Hornet feels her chest tighten. Feels the Hollow Knight draw close. Automatically, Hornet takes their hand. Siblings. The Hollow Knight, even in their silent state, is so… needy, somehow. They are wounded and broken. They do not like to be away from Hornet. They do not like the dark. They do not like locked rooms or too much light. They do not like much. Perhaps later they will be stronger, but for now, for now, they need her far more than her mother will.

“I do not think I need to remind you that Queen Herrah would not be pleased if you brought one of the Pale King’s children to her court.” The Mask Maker replies mildly, running a finger along the edge of one of the fragments, just feeling the material. Almost frictionless. Exquisite.

“Oh?” Hornet’s tone is needles encased in ice - frozen and sharp. “I’m sure she’ll get used to it. I’m one of them, after all.”

And with that the princess flicks her cape as she suddenly storms out, all fury and thunder, and the Mask Maker simply sighs, shaking his head. It is only the Hollow Knight, lingering in the door, who hears the words the artisan half laughs and half mumbles through defeated lips, still entranced by the material in his hands.

“...Just like our Queen, the princess is… ah well, I’m sure she’ll hear about the declaration of war soon enough…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. I write it, you read it. Maybe if this goes far enough I'll post the human!au version art I drew of these characters here or something, idk.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mato's little friend has a gift and a visitor. Only one is welcome.

Mato hums softly as he polishes his nail, working the metal to a mirror sheen. He probably doesn’t need to, but he has a few minutes, and he has a belief about this. No matter what comes, rain or shine, as long as your nail is in good condition, you’ll be able to meet whatever the day throws at you. Even if it’s something like an uncomfortable river crossing, or a sudden outbreak of rain or even just being bashfully late for practice because you were, well, keeping your nail in good condition, as long as you actually have your nail in tip top shape, you can laugh it off - confident that no matter what comes, you at least have a weapon on your back that won’t crack or crumble. 

Sure, Sly might have gotten on his case about it, stating that a tool is only as good as it’s user, but the way he sees it, a little time and grease here and there never hurts anything. He’s seen too many good men die with failing steel way to change his beliefs now, after all.

He’s just putting the rag down when he feels a shadow behind him. A familiar shadow, darting past, silent as a cat, just on the edges of his perception. He lets his cloak fall, brings his head forward, closing his eyes for just a moment as he pretends to slide into deep meditation, his breath coming quiet and still, gentle and soft. He feels the shadow stirring closer. Closer. Still silent. Near invisible. He can almost see it. A pure white helm, peering forth from the shadows behind him, unreadable - the eyeholes dark and unlit as if empty...

“Got you, you scamp!” Mato cries as he reaches out, wrapping his arms around a wriggly, indistinct bundle of rags. There’s a sensation of flailing limbs, of shock and startled silence… and then the little shadow calms in his arms, the white helm turning up with what Mato likes to hope is a smile.

He feels those tiny arms wrap around maybe a third of his body, and shifts his grip to support the little shade almost like a parrot, letting the little knight dangle their legs off his arm comfortably as he grins at them. Now that they’re in the light, he can see them clearly. Almost all black leather armor and cloth, with a little traveling cloak that does a marvelous job of hiding their form and shrouding them from view… and a pale white mask. One of the King’s Children, a Vessel. Not that it bothers him, no. He’s met uncursed people with less  _ joy de vivre _ than his little friend here.

“All right, my finest pupil. What are you trying to hide today?”

His pupil replies with silence, with a little twist of the shoulders and cupped hands that nonetheless indicate a certain “Who, me?” that Mato has learned to read.

“Come now.” Mato urges with a little chuckle, ruffling the top of his pupil’s mask fondly. “Don’t be shy. I won’t get mad, promise.”

Mato watches as the little Vessel thinks, pondering to themselves for a moment, before simply turning up their hands - opening them, palms forward, to reveal a wriggling, bright blue creature that pulses and glows from the inside. Ah. Mato carefully opens his eyes, widening his face to friendliness, even as he watches his pupil carefully cup their shadowy fingers to prevent the thing from turning over and escaping.

“A Lifeseed…! My, how wonderful! But, you do remember?” Mato watches his pupil’s tiny head turn, the pale mask slowly tilting to the side as if in mild annoyance that Mato would remember his own rules. “No lifeblood before dinner. We’re trying to keep down real food, remember?”

No response, save for a certain huff as the vessel pulls back their offering, still cupping it close, to try to wriggle free of Mato’s arms. Mato, of course, having two arms free, makes a point of helping them to the ground, still smiling.

Even this is progress. He remembers when his pupil had staggered in, haggard and strained, dripping a strange black substance over his floor as they had lurched into his arms, streaming a strange darkness into the air. It had been hard to breathe, harder to take them in, to wrap them in blankets soon dyed pitch, and oh, Mato had been unsure of how to treat such an affliction, such a sickness, where the soul almost seemed to strain and twist against the body as if offended by such a small form…

And next day, just like that, his little pupil had recovered. Recovered and pushed themselves up, as if to leave. And Mato, poor, soft Mato, Mato, who Sly had chastised again and again, for his shortsightedness, had called out, had closed the door on that tiny form, before those shaking hands could reach it and freedom.

He’d begged his pupil to stay. For breakfast, at least. But they had stayed longer, much longer, as if in apology for the way they still struggle to do much more than push food around on their plate. At first Mato had chalked it up to sickness, but then it became apparent - for all that the vessels are skilled in combat and talented with learning even the most taxing of nail arts, they still struggle so with even the most basic aspects of day to day life. Everything from eating to sleeping to remembering to bathe… it all comes with difficulty to Mato’s little friend.

So Mato celebrates even the littlest things his pupil succeeds in, and offers what guidance he can. Perhaps his pupil does not need to eat. But his pupil does not need to emote, does not need to come home and sleep under a roof with a bed, does not need to be held and praised or loved, and yet they seem all the richer for it, blooming like a delicate flower in his hands. though he has yet to have the honor of hearing them speak. That isn’t to say they haven’t communicated a name, however - how happy Mato was, how overjoyed when the little vessel approached, a seed in hand, and pointed first to it, and them themselves...

“All right, my precious Seedling. But you won’t get dessert if you spoil your dinner with lifeblood.” Mato playfully chides, coming back to the present with a smile. “It’s your favorite, too, walnut loaf!”

Oh, that immediately gets Seedling’s attention. Mato knew it would. Their head turns, and they quickly scoop up a little jar (one of many Mato has around, just for occasions such as this) and dump the Lifeseed inside, rushing over to the table as if dinner’s conclusion might make dessert come more quickly. Yes indeed. Seed might not need to eat, but they certainly like to, provided it’s the right kind of food…

Mato is all set to cut into the loaf when he hears someone knocking on the front door. Quietly at first, then louder.

“My… who could that be this late at night?” Mato wonders aloud, placing the knife down with care. It’s ill luck that they’re even forced to knock in the first place - Mato is normally happy to keep his home open to anyone, but not even a few days ago some vagrant had wandered in, snatched what Geo was available, and simply scarpered off. Mato hadn’t minded, but his little pupil had seemed so distressed that he’d decided to make a big show of locking the door for a few weeks…

“I’m coming, I’m coming…” Mato calls, even as he lumbers over to the door - the knocking has turned to pounding, almost desperate. Is someone seeking asylum, or being hunted…? But no, this is too desperate, too hungry for even that…

“-me IN!”

Mato has his key in the lock when the voice finally pierces through the thick walls, husky, echoing and strange.

“LET ME IN! I MUST SEE THEM! I KNOW YOU HAVE THEM! YOU CANNOT KEEP ME FROM THEM!”

The words register too late, Mato’s hands are already moving on automatic, and the moment the key even slightly turns, the door is shoved desperately open with what feels like someone’s full weigh - though Mato catches it with his own shoulder, cursing softly under his breath. Through the crack in the door between them, Mato looks up and sees a massive golden mask, a bulky body swathed in robes and bandages stained by travel and time.

Something makes Mato turn, glance to Seedling - and he’s surprised to find his fearless friend quivering. That alone tells him that he needs to turn this strange visitor away.

“There’s no one here but me-” He tries, words straining - but the masked stranger shoves all the harder, spurred by a strange hunger and desperation Mato cannot understand.

“DO NOT LIE TO ME! I KNOW YOU ARE HIDING THEM! LET ME SEE MY GOD!”

“What-?” Mato sputters even as he feels the door sliding, the gap widening - the stranger gets one hand in, black gloved and strangely slender, but it is their mask, wide and ornate, that prevents them from coming inside by that slender gap.

“THE GOD HIDDEN BEHIND ALL OTHERS! THE VOID GIVEN FOCUS! THE DIVINITY HIDING IN THE ABYSS!”

  
  
Mato gasps as he feels a breeze open behind him - hears a window shatter. A quick glance behind him and he sees his friend, his pupil, his Seedling, posed in front of the window. Fearful. Fleeing. He tries to offer a reassuring smile, but in that moment, the stranger shoves a shoulder through the door and points, scrabbling, desperate, almost frothing, at Seed.

“THE DARK ASCENDED, THE SHADE LORD! MY GOD, I HAVE COME FOR YOU!”

The little vessel gives one last, sad look to Mato, who does his best to plead, to beg with his eyes.  _ Don’t go. This has only just become your home. _ But it is not enough.

Seed jumps through the window, and is gone. The stranger wails, howls in desperation, trying to disentangle themselves to follow - and it is all Mato can do to keep her there. For his little friend’s sake, if nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fresh chapter, I fic it, you read it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monomon and Quirrel talk of gods, roots and journeys.

“Quirrel.” Monomon breathes, in that tranquil, transient voice of hers, “Do you know the difference between a Higher Being, and a lower one, like you or I?”

Quirrel stops shelving. Around him, the chaos does not stop - the useless dandies continue to spin, drifting aimlessly, carrying books for the look of it, hauling them to heavens know where. They were useless before the infection and they’re only marginally less useless now - but they’ve lived, preserved like this library, precious only because they did not fall wholly to the infection and so now they too are valuable, pressed into service if only because of a general lack of hands.

Pressed into service once again, Quirrel thinks. Once for the infection, and once more for… what? There are no kings anymore. No kingdoms.

“Perhaps it could be the very fact that they were divine, madam?” Quirrel replies, slotting a heavy tome into place with a thunk. It had been scattered trampled, and in fact still bears the mark of a boot upon its face. It will need a new cover, new bindings, tattered and ill-kempt as it is. But does a book of transactions, records and services rendered even deserve such a thing?

Monomon laughs. One would think her laugh would be high and tittering or at least fluid and graceful - but it is not so. She snorts, her giggling fits as undignified as the creases at the edges of her eyes. “Oh yes indeed. But do you know what makes a being divine in the first place?”

“Erm.” Quirrel scratches his head, under his scarf. It feels strange that it is so light, uncovered. It feels stranger still to see Monomon wearing her own mask again - wearing it as he once wore it, like a helm atop her head. Had she always worn it so? He cannot seem to recall. “Is it a matter of faith, madam? Perhaps a measure of power?”

“If it were faith, then Herrah would not have needed to strike the bargain she struck.” Monomon intones, her eyes glittering peacefully as she smiles down at Quirrel, placing a hand on his shoulder. Companionably. Comfortingly. He knows this touch, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? “If it were power, then surely we would have seen more gods than rats in a grain house, would we not? Though, there are flickers of divinity in those who have strength, they are not themselves gods. It takes more than that.”

“So if it’s not power or faith, what is it then?” Quirrel asks, wishing in his heart of hearts Monomon would lift her hand, that this familiar touch would end. She touches him all the time now, touches him with the familiarity of an old friend, and his body remembers, but his mind does not. The dissonance will kill him, will split him down the center one day, he just knows it - but for now he watches her bend down, down, down, her eyes glittering conspiratorially, her smile wide, sure that he is in the loop on a secret that he desperately knows he is not.

“It takes two things - lineage and aspect.” She whispers, her face inches from Quirrel’s. He has to fight the urge not to back away. He has to fight to keep his smile, for the lady he has sworn his life to, for the stranger who knows everything about him.

“I suppose you’re about to tell me more, madam?” He chuckles, drawling away, dancing away with little military steps - to pull a chair and nothing more, surely not because he is unnerved, surely not because he is on guard. “Then I shall pull a seat to take a proper listen.”

His reward is a delighted titter, more laughter, as Monomon places fingertips together. “Indeed. Let us speak first of lineage - as we know little and less of it. Gods are simply made of different stuff than us mortals, born of different lines, and we do not know from where they spring, as they do not tell - though they are happy enough to live among us. They cannot hide this nature of theirs, only obscure or dim it for a time.”

“Mm.” Quirrel responds, not really a reply so much as a sound to indicate that he is still listening. He has settled on his chair backwards, arms folded on the top, as he watches Monomon pontificate. This, at least, is soothing. Something about watching the way her lips move and listening to the sound of her voice puts one into an academic trance that could last hours…

“The second requirement is aspect. Simply put, it is not enough to be of proper lineage to be a god. You must be a god _of_ something. The White Lady is of plants, for instance - a being of verdant earth and twisting root, though it is hard to say if she was always an exemplary aspect of nature, or if she has perhaps become that as a result of her role. Either way, she practically embodies her aspect, as all divinity do...”

Quirrel hears Monomon taking a breath, and holds up a hand. As much as he likes the lecture, he sees two fools bumping into each other in the distance, getting into an argument for lack of direction, and knows that there simply is no time for a prolonged discussion with so many spoiled egos to babysit. “Madam, is this… going anywhere…?”

  
“Oh, certainly! Essentially, the important thing is that there’s a new Higher Being in Hallownest and I’d like you to go and find out as much as possible about them!”

Quirrel watches Monomon clap her hands together. Quirrel sits in silence, watching the Teacher beam at him expectantly. Quirrel waits for more information, for an admission that this is all a joke, for something other than the unthinkable madness that Monomon is going to send him out with nothing more than the simple notion that there’s a new divinity (how? why?) out there somewhere.

Eventually, Monomon unclasps her hands and says “Go on now, go!” while making little shoo-shoo motions with her hands, as if she were urging along a child. Quirrel, having walked almost the entire world and back, is not impressed and remains seated.  
  


“Madam, with all due respect, I’ve spent most of my life roaming the world for you and have now _just_ gotten back to actual archival duties. There is much to do and little time, and we need to preserve the what few writings of the city remain from before the Infection before others get to them and damage them. What makes you think that I’m going to drop everything to chase after some extra Higher Being that will probably reveal itself in time anyway?”

Monomon listens to the entire speech with a smile that slowly grows softer over time. By the end of it, her eyes are soft, almost pitying, but her smile, her smile is the same. She glides forward, hands extended, and this time Quirrel really does flinch - but when her hands cup his face, he finds he cannot pull away, cannot look away, no matter how he wants to. Something in him is screaming. Something in him is terrified. This is not right. But he doesn’t have enough memory to know, doesn’t have enough memories to place exactly what is wrong with this picture - why this intimacy is incorrect. All he can do is look into her eyes, her warm, pitying, distant eyes, and listen.

“You will go because you are _my Quirrel.”_ She says, her voice as soft as angel feathers. And even if Quirrel’s knuckles are white on the wood of the chair, they both know it is true. He will go for her. He will get the information. Even if he doesn’t want to.

  
  
Monomon pulls away with a twirl, so suddenly that Quirrel staggers in his chair, and claps her hands again, all bright smiles and chipperness - as if that strange moment hadn’t happened. As if she hadn’t just had Quirrel’s soul on a hook.

“Right! Let’s get you all geared up and then we’ll go over the list!”

“The- the list?”

Monomon doesn’t even turn, she simply raises a hand, laughing as she walks away. Behind her, the library descends into further chaos from her neglect, as the two fighting fools from before careen into others, whose outraged cries catch the ears of yet more - sure to be an all out brawl. Not that she seems to care, not even as a book whizzes over her head.

“The list of leads, of course! You didn’t think there’d only be _one_ , did you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fresh fish, fresh (jelly)fish for sale.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hornet meets her mother.

In the silence and solitude of her throne room, Herrah rolls and clatters prayer beads in her hand, kneading them between her knuckles. Wooden things, thickly and simply carved, she remembers that they had been a point of contention with the Hallownesters. After all, the fools had reckoned, such simple objects of faith could only come from simple minds, simple souls.

Never mind the marvels of silk and stone, the suspended buildings built on nothing but miracles of engineering, wood and rope, the elaborate robes that cloak her people, the weapons that cut through armor and bone alike-!

Herrah closes her eyes and breathes, forces herself to take solace in the familiar ring of her own breaths against her mask, in the clatter of wood on wood, in the feeling of firmness in her hands. She has already left another indentation in the wood - one of many, and this set is already fresh - another new carving, freshly gifted after her rebirth…

Rebirth… if only that she had never died! So much time wasted. So many years dreaming, viewing the world through his filter, through his eyes… If Herrah had realized that he would twist things so, she would simply have banded together with the Mantises and found whatever secret had kept them sane to take the thrice damned kingdom for herself!

Instead… instead she had seen the bastard. Seen the glint of his radiance, the light of his power on the battlefield and had wanted it for herself. No. Not for herself. For her daughter - her child. To have even half the power of a Higher Being would change everything, would open so much for her people, for her Hornet...

  
  
Bewitched, she’d fallen for his swan song… and the cost was too great. Far, far too great. Her people, decimated. Her kingdom in disarray, her own body a sacrifice… and even her own wish was twisted in the end, as her own daughter became princess and protector - yet another cursed layer of protection for the Pale King’s zombie of a city. To even think of it, to know that while she was dreaming, her daughter was being groomed, being taught to mindlessly protect and guard her father’s gravesite of a kingdom is, is-!!

**“RRRRAAAAAAHHHHH!!”**

_CRACK._

The prayer beads clatter to the ground, ruined and shattered to pieces between Herrah’s fingers. She cannot feel the blood. Even if she could, she would only blame it on him, would only heap more fury upon his grave. If only the bastard were still alive, so she could wring his pasty neck herself!

“...Your Ferocity?” 

Herrah spins all too quickly, rounding on the weaver attending her with a snarl and hands raised into claws - but her devouts are made of stern stuff, and to her credit, the weaver barely flinches, instead bowing a masked head almost to the ground.

“Your Beastliness-”

“Herrah.” The queen snaps. Tiredly, but with less bite. Her anger is draining, but it lingers - festers like an old wound. She’ll need new beads and quickly. For now, she throws herself on her throne, fingers biting into old familiar grooves long worn smooth by time. Her mother’s marks. And her mother’s mother’s, and her mother’s mother’s mother’s. Weaver nobility have always found the need to work with their hands, just like their people.

“Herrah.” The weaver continues, her fangs clicking, just once, against her mask. Deferentially. Herrah’s hands tighten against her throne at the sound. No one should have to bow so low that their fangs touch the ground. Not for her, not for anyone.

“Stand up.” Herrah commands, her voice ringing out against the hall. She watches the weaver hesitate. She watches the weaver stand, silk robes whisper-silent as she pushes herself to her feet. “I never want to see anyone bowing in my court. You will address me as an equal, or not at all. You will call me by name or not at all.”

The weaver is silent for a moment, head bowed, masked face unreadable… and then she nods, once. “Very well, my queen.”

The weaver freezes at the title and Herrah shoots the woman a warning glance, but waves a hand, allowing her to continue. Queen is merely a descriptor, after all - a true definition. Ferocity, on the other hand? Useless flattery, even if it is true.

“Your daughter is here to see you, Herrah.”

Herrah heaves a breath, feels her shoulders unclench, if only by a hair. Finally, some _good_ news.

\--

Hornet is acutely aware of every eye on her as she walks the royal steps to the throne room. So long alone, and now this - this weighted silence, where every weaver is looking at her with so many expectations, with so much hope.

Weaver buildings look nothing like the White Palace. They have a starkness of intent that the Pale King, in his opulence and decadence, lacked. These carefully laid out and woven rope paths look nothing like the rambling, twisting, open-air corridors she used to call home.

But she cannot help but feel a sense of deja vu as she watches two attending weavers pull the door open, sees her mother on her throne, alone. Powerful and radiant, lit by only a single shaft of light.

Hornet tightens her hand around her needle, her fingers feeling the old grooves in the metal - and steels herself to meet her mother.

“Hornet.” Herrah begins, as her daughter comes forward, feet silent on the tile, (always silent, a trick learned in the wilds, lest prey escape.) “It is so, so good to see you again.”

Hornet can hear the emotion in her voice. Real emotion. Real love. But it is strangled, filtered - wound tight by time and decorum. Hornet takes a knee, and instantly knows it is wrong by a change in atmosphere, by the annoyed click of her mother’s tongue. But the atmosphere was wrong anyway - too harmonious, too strange. Shouldn’t a meeting between mother and daughter be one full of tears? Or are they both too strong to cry?

“It is… a pleasure to see you as well.” Hornet tries, falling back on court manners long grown creaky with disuse. Is it truly a pleasure, if they’d never met in the first place? If this is a relationship built on only one person’s memories? Can such a relationship ever be balanced, ever be whole?

“We have much to catch up on.” Herrah notes, a hand coming up to caress the bottom of her mask. Hornet notes, distantly, that even the Pale King’s best manicurists couldn’t wear away the callouses on her hands before she was put to sleep - that when they rub against the smooth material they rasp like old sandpaper. Has she ever felt a touch like that on her skin? Surely, surely she would remember it. “But it is no matter - we have all the time in the world now…”

“We do indeed.” Hornet remarks. Hears herself remark, her hand smoothing over her needle, again and again. Like the minutes before a hunt, except there’s no end in sight. Why does she feel the need to run?

“...Let me see your face.”

Hornet stiffens, even before Herrah stands. Frozen like a prey-animal. Instinctively, she shakes her head, stands, holding up her hands - but Herrah is already walking forward, her voice ringing clear.

“No I-”

“I think I have a right to see my daughter’s face.”

Hornet feels herself backing away, feels her hand on her needle. But Herrah is still approaching, arms swinging in a confident stride. Hornet moves silently, but Herrah is too big for that - she can almost feel the vibrations of every step.

“I have sacrificed much for you, Hornet.” Herrah says, looming over Hornet like a matronly colossus. Already her hands are reaching, reaching, and Hornet is powerless to stop them. They are not unkind. They do not rip her mask away. But when they pull away that thin piece of metal, they remove a part of her identity all the same.

“You are precious to me, Hornet.” She hears her mother say. “And I simply wish to see how your fangs have grown in.”

Hornet feels hands run down her face. Calloused, well used hands, rougher than a blacksmith’s gloves. She closes her eyes, and feels her mother’s hands glide over them - first one set. Then the second. She hears a grunt of approval.

“Only four eyes? Your father is deficient in more ways than one.” Herrah remarks. Still, she seems pleased as her fingers stray downwards, their rough surface grating the edges of Hornet’s fangs so badly that she has to fight the urge to bite. “Nice and big, just like mom, eh? Good to see you’ve got strong weaver blood in you after all.”

She pulls her hands away, and even as Hornet is shivering in relief, Herrah thumps her arm with a smack that could shatter bone, laughing. “Now all we have to do is work on your physique, huh! You’re skin and bones, girl!”

“...My mask.” Hornet gasps, after a few seconds of sucking pain, clutching her arm tightly. “Please.”

Herrah holds the pale thing up as if it were a sock puppet. “This _old thing?_ No. We’re getting you a new one. A proper one, with the correct number of eyes. This is a child’s mask, meant for _children._ You’ve long outgrown it.”

Herrah is already tucking it under her arm, but Hornet’s face is burning. Burning with shame, burning with touch unwanted, burning with discomfort and humiliation. Perhaps it is a child’s mask, but it is hers - her face, her comfort, her identity. Herrah has no right to simply take it away.

“Nonetheless, I want it back.” She pleads. But Herrah is already walking back to her throne, waving her free hand dismissively.

“You are not a _child_ anymore, Hornet. You cannot cling to childish things. You will simply have to embrace your natural-born face for a bit as we have a new one commissioned.”

Hornet hangs her head. To any other foe, she would fight, to anyone else, she would already be dancing the steps of war. But this is… her mother. Herrah. This indignity… though bitter, is familiar. Is it not to be expected of family? Of loved ones?

It is simply her fault that she had hoped for better. Had allowed herself to dream of better. And yet... the feeling that there might have been something more, it’s like a scratching at the back of her head, like someone clawing at a metal door…

...Actually, that’s exactly what it sounds like. Scratching, banging and… shouting? Hornet blinks, turning her head as she realizes that the sound isn’t entirely internal.

_“...don’t touch it, don’t touch it! It’s leaking…!”_

_“...who let it this far in?! Kill it before it reaches the queen…!”_

With one last burst, the doors to the throne room burst open to reveal the Hollow Knight, bent nearly double - haggard and wild eyed and surrounded by nearly a dozen weavers, each one bearing a silk thread rope nearly dripping with void. Even as Hornet watches, the Knight presses forward - pushing their weight forward one laborious step at a time, the liquid void oozing from their skin fraying and eating through the common silk one strand at a time.

Hornet isn’t even sure what to shout - isn’t even sure what to call them yet. But when a weaver spear lances into the Knight’s back with an audible thunk she _screams_ in outrage and upset even as the Knight reaches up to pull the weapon out, gushing great gouts of black blood onto the floor. Weaver silk rope does not sever easily, but they hack away at the cords binding them even as the weavers around them swear and hiss, scrambling with greater determination at the princess’ apparent unrest.

“STOP, STOP, STOP!” Hornet shouts, waving her arms wildly, sprinting to the knight’s side - and she has to physically grab a soldier to gain their attention, to see their eyes wrinkle in confusion behind their mask. “You can’t hurt them! They’re a friend - they’re, they’re _my_ friend!”

“What-?” The weaver barely sputters - only to dodge to the side as the Hollow Knight reaches down, not towards any attacker, but towards Hornet herself. They place a hand on her shoulder, strong and silent, despite the wounds even now shuddering through them. Hornet looks up into the silent, abyssal face of the Hollow Knight. They speak no words - they never speak any words. But they blink, just once, their hand tightening around her shoulder.

Solidarity. Affection. Understanding. Sympathy. Support. For one without the means to communicate, the Hollow Knight is remarkably expressive. They are both unmasked now. They are both vulnerable. They are both here, together, and even if the Knight is wounded, surely Hornet can explain. She can reclaim her mask. She can reclaim herself. She does not stand alone - will never stand alone, so long as the Hollow Knight stands with her, silent and proud. There is simply something calming about them - something reassuring about that empty stare. Already Hornet feels a little better, just from the aura of silence around them.

What a pity it is, then, that Herrah is already halfway across the throne room with fists clenched at her sides, her anger pounding into the air almost like a physical force. Hornet can see her mother’s neck muscles bulging as she stomps forward - each step pounding out in the chamber like the footfalls of a giant, can see her arm muscles twisting and knotting into the killing pistons that have earned her the title of “Beast.”

_“What.”_ She snarls, pointing at the Hollow Knight with such force that Hornet can feel the warrior tense on her shoulder. _“Is the Pale King’s failed guardian doing in_ ** _my_** _court?”_

“...They are my sibling.” Hornet replies, her voice remarkably steady, remarkably controlled. She can hear the Hollow Knight breathing behind her. She can hear their rattling breath, labored and in pain. After all the trouble she went to healing them, too… “You will treat them with dignity and respect.”

_“It's a goddamned abomination!”_ Herrah snaps, stamping her foot in reply. Behind her mask, her face is growing redder by the moment, her hands forming into claws. “I will not have one of the Pale King’s foul spawn in my court! _Do you hear me!? You get rid of that thing right now, Hornet!”_

Hornet hears one of the ropes around the Hollow Knight’s neck snap and fall away in the silence after the queen’s rage - eaten clean through by the void on their skin. Hears it hit the ground with a dusty thud, watches the weaver holding it drop it quickly, afraid to touch. Her sibling. Cursed so many times - by their birth, by the void, and now by her mother. Hornet feels her own rage bubbling, burning under her skin. But unlike her mother, she keeps her expression level as she replies - her voice steady, like steel. She hasn’t had the luxury of being loud, after all - such things aren’t allowed in the Pale King’s courts.

“Well. You’d better get used to having the Pale King’s spawn around, Herrah, because I’m one of them.”   
  
She turns her gaze to the Hollow Knight, takes in their mournful state, and with one clean flash of her needle, cuts the cords binding them - though the ragged threads still remain, woven around their collar like a dozen hangman’s nooses. She will have to clear them later, when she heals them. “Come on, Knight. Let’s get out of here. Clearly we’re not welcome.”

  
 _“Don’t you dare leave.”_ Herrah growls - and for a moment, Hornet’s steps falter. “If you leave, you’re not coming back, you hear me? _You’re never coming back.”_

“...Will you let the Knight stay with me as an equal?” Hornet asks, not even turning, her back still to the queen.

_“It's not even a person!”_ Herrah screams, as if it’s simply that easy, as if it’s simply true. Hornet feels her heart sink. Feels a weight on her shoulders that has nothing to do with the weight of the Knight. But she feels that strong arm squeeze her all the same. Kindly, lovingly. More lovingly than Herrah or the Pale King ever had.

“Then I see no reason to return.”  
  


She takes the Hollow Knight’s hand to support them, offering her shoulder when the steps grow steep - and with staggering, silent, unmasked steps, the Hollow Knight and Hornet leave Herrah’s court.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because it's a human AU doesn't mean they're ""human."" But "human-shaped" AU isn't a category, is it?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hollow Knight and the Mask Maker have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for the Pale King's Colonialism and Vessel Abuse

The Holllow Knight does not think. Does not allow themselves to think. But in times like these, times when their blood is pouring, when the pain is white-hot - and oh, they know of white-hot pain, yes they do - they reminisce. Just a little.

Of other times, when their steps would falter. Of other days, when they would lean, bloodied and beaten, their black blood dragging along with their foot across immaculate floors. Before they were chosen, before they were proven to be “Pure” - before they were  _ made _ pure. Yes, purity forged through combat and tested with pain. To cry out, to flinch, to show emotion... 

Was a reason to be pulled, at first kicking and screaming and then silent and resigned, back down to the labs. For another application of void. To have their personality scrubbed away, one drop of abyss at a time. The process was always painful. Was always harrowing. Some came back. Some didn’t. The child who would become the Hollow Knight bore it as they bore everything. With duty. With dignity. With love? ...With love.

They had been younger then. They had been weaker then. They were leaning against the wall, they remember, just as they lean against Hornet now. They had thought they were alone. They were wrong about that.

They don’t remember the moment the Pale King had approached them. Perhaps he didn’t - perhaps he simply appeared out of the white tile like the ghost he so resembled. All they remember is his gaze. His touch. The fractional, perhaps even imagined fondness his eyes. The Hollow Knight had never thrown tantrums, had never screamed, had rarely flinched, had never cried out. For that, had they earned love?

The Pale King’s gaze… it had frozen them. It had terrified them. The attention of a god is not a thing that can be borne lightly. Especially when that god is your parent. Especially when you love them. They had wanted to run. It had felt wrong. So wrong.

“Hm.” The Pale King had said, in a voice that was at once whisper and echo. The Hollow Knight remembers his hands. Almost translucent, like glass and marble mixed. Unreal - ethereal, brushing along their mask, tracing it. Finding a seam, a crack so thin that the Knight would not have known it was there, had the King not slipped his nail into it. “You are injured.”

The Knight said nothing. Would never say anything. Would never be allowed to say anything - but now, especially, there is nothing to say. When the Pale King speaks, all must listen. Of such truths are vessels made.

They remember the hand sliding down, they remember the  _ power,  _ white hot, divine and unreal - cold light, sucking light, so close to their eye that it at first blurred and numbed and then burned. The Knight remembers being blinded in one eye for weeks, remembers the _ aching, _ the _ joy  _ of that blessing...

“...And now you are mended.” The Pale King had said, drawing his hand away with a satisfied smile not afforded to his subjects, to his children. And indeed, the mask had been mended. But the Knight was still bleeding, and already the King had wandered off - having happily confused container and subject…

“Hey. Stay with me, Knight. We’re almost there.”

The Hollow Knight feels Hornet shift under their body, feels her sling more of their weight onto her shoulder. They can see a hut ahead. The Mask Maker’s home, they blearily recall. So many new names. So many new places. Since their release, everything is so strange - so unreal, like a dream they never wake from. But they know of dreams, they know of dreams in all their flaming agony and keening delight, in all their lies and whimsy, and these faltering, painful steps?

Well. Even if their consciousness and understanding of time lapses in and out between putting one foot forward and the next, they know this is reality. Not because it is strange, but because it is fresh - because Hornet’s voice, soft and distant, guiding and constant, is an anchor, holding them to the real.

A door opens. They are pressed down by urging, gloved hands. Their cloak, stained and blackened, is pulled aside. Their body, stained and blackened, is bared. For a few moments, the Hollow Knight only knows the metallic, sucking taste of blood and air. For a few moments, there is only the sound of twisting thread being gracefully spun, zipping through the air on it’s way to catch their wounds.

Silk and Soul. The Hollow Knight knows their sister by this feeling, by this relief. By the coolness that spreads through them, icy and distant, nothing like their father, save for the shape of it. Their breathing eases, calms, and they risk straying a gloved hand down. Bandages, freshly woven. Care and compassion. Alien and unreal and  _ blissful. _ They have no words. Never have words - but now especially, there is nothing they could say that could capture the gratitude.

Instead they cry. Mutely. Silently, their tears rolling hot into the pillow, sizzling black where they collect void from their skin. Trace amounts. Hornet is speaking with someone. The Mask Maker.

_ “I’m so sorry about this. I just didn’t know where else to go.” _

_ “It’s fine. My home is ever yours, princess.” _

_ “...Thank you… About the blankets-” _

_ “They are nothing compared to a life. I can replace them if you handle their disposal. Just be sure to be gone by morning. Herrah does tend to be rather serious about banishments.” _

_ “...Of course.” _

_ “You must be tired, princess. Please. Take a rest. I will watch over your sibling.” _

_ “Yes. I… thank you.” _

The Hollow Knight hears Hornet stagger away. Hears a door close. Hears her cry secret tears into a pillow - tears of rage and sorrow and regret and disappointment. It is remarkable what one can hear, with ears trained in a life of silence. The Hollow Knight attempts to pull the pillow over their head, just to dull that sound.

“...You are awake, Knight?”

The Hollow Knight picks up their head, to stare at the Mask Maker. The Mask Maker, who has a brush in one hand, idly spinning, uncomfortably spinning. The look of a man with something to say. Well. They are good for nothing if not for listening. Slowly, carefully, the Knight nods.

“I must apologize.” He begins, slowly. Carefully. “I did not… think of you as a person when we met. I did not realize that you could have been one. It was wrong of me… and I am ashamed to say that even when the princess chided me, it took you… bleeding in front of me, for me to fully realize that you were…”

The Mask Maker seems to struggle. Places his brush down. Picks it up. Puts a hand to his mask, leaving a big smear, and then sighs, shoulders falling. The Hollow Knight only watches. Only listens. It is all they can do.

“...real?”

It is a terrible thing to say. The word hangs between them. Sucking and terrible. The Mask Maker falls still. Terribly terribly still. Guilt gathers in the air like a storm, almost palpable.

Slowly, the Hollow Knight nods. A motion to continue. But life is not so easy. The Mask Maker is not some Hallownest noble, eager to trample feelings in his haste to continue the conversation. His hand comes to his temples, rubs, coating paint there as well. The silence stretches on, until the Hollow Knight can almost hear the old man’s heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump.

“...I am sorry.” Is all he manages, in the end. “But, there is more I… I wanted to tell you. Because you deserve to know, and because I think perhaps… no one has told you. And someone should - even if perhaps, it should not… have been me.”

The Hollow Knight watches, silently, as the Mask Maker places hands to the sides of his mask. Loosening it, as he speaks, though his hands hold it in place, his voice heavy and grave.

“Please understand me, when I say it is not personal…? The rift between Deepnest and Hallownest is neither easily bridged nor shallow. I know… I was told that you know little and less of the world, Knight. But the bad blood between our kind runs both old and deep.”

The Hollow Knight blinks as the Mask Maker’s hands come forward, as the mask hits the table with a heavy clatter. His face is old and lined, first with laugh lines, and then with more recent sorrow. Six eyes, heavy with grief, stare into the Hollow Knight’s empty gaze. When he speaks, he speaks around fangs, obvious and thick, protruding from the sides of his mouth.

“We have carved masks for as long as we have been Weavers. But with one look at our true faces, the people of Hallownest decided we were savages and monsters - fit only to be oppressed and exploited. They came to civilize us, to burn our silk and our culture away and replace it with their own. We resisted with everything we had… until the infection struck, and all notion of war became foolish - and in the end, the irony of ironies was that they adopted our masks and our queen in the vain hope of keeping the infection away…”

The Mask Maker sighs, shaking his head as he presses the mask back to his face, his expression hidden - but the Hollow Knight does not need to see it to know it is bitter.

“And now the queen speaks of bringing war to Hallownest - this time to show them the ‘civilized’ way. It is madness. The people of Hallownest are weak and scattered, yes - but this is no time for war. We must all pick up the pieces of what we have lost, and build lives anew…”

The Mask Maker… he sounds not just weary, but broken. Brokenhearted. His words one shade away from tears. Like Hornet? Had he believed, too - had he believed that the queen would be better than this? The Hollow Knight does not know. Cannot know. They simply listen and observe. They just absorb, like a sponge, the Mask Maker’s every move, every motion, every word.

“...Which brings me to my second point.” The Mask Maker continues, pushing himself upwards, his fingers tense on the table - five lines, neatly stretched and a drumming thumb. “We are all building our lives anew, are we not? Finding ourselves. Giving ourselves new identities, new names, in the wake of this calamity…”

He pauses, tilting his head, doing that peculiar thing that speaking people do when they wait to see if the Hollow Knight is listening, not knowing that the Hollow Knight is always listening - is never not listening, will never not be listening, from now until the day they die. Still, they nod, showing willing as they’ve been taught.

But the Mask Maker isn’t satisfied with that. The old man picks himself up, bones creaking, chair complaining, and walks over. He is thin, under his rags. Thin but broad, and tough like old jerky. His arms are scarred. Was he always a Mask Maker? His physique speaks of an old warrior. But then - it is hard to find anyone who was not a warrior at some point in their life.

To the Hollow Knight’s shock, the Mask Maker takes their hand - their only hand, and rubs it gently between his gloved fingers. He is smiling. He is gentle. He is unafraid. The void hisses and roils almost in protest against his fingers but does not corrode, does not eat.

“....It is only dangerous in liquid form, is it not?” He says, chuckling. “I’ve had some time to test, with what remained in your helm. The void dried on your skin… it will not hurt another. It is only when freshly spilled that it begins to eat into the air around us.”

Numbly, the Hollow Knight nods. It does make sense. They would not know, of course. No one would have told them the properties of their own body. Not as it would affect other people, anyway. 

“Knight… You have had much hardship thrust upon you, I think. You have had your role and identity pushed upon you by others. Even your name and face were not your own. But I want you to remember, that at any time, you can change yourself. Your name, your face… how others see you… you can choose these yourself.”

The Hollow Knight looks down, watches hands reach into ragged robes to pull out, yes - their helm. Now a mask, white and pale and perfectly suited to them. The same shape, the same feature. Simply… enlarged, opened, sculpted to suit them…

They look up. The Mask Maker is wearing another mask - has already changed faces in the time it took for them to examine their own. Somehow, they can tell the man is winking.

“Just something to think about. All right? You don’t have to be the Hollow Knight forever… and I will always be here for you, should you wish to change your face.”

The Mask Maker closes the Hollow Knight’s hand around their own face, around their own features, and then he makes a great show of stretching and yawning. “Well! I am bushed. It’s time for this old man to go to bed, don’t you think?”

He smiles back at the Hollow Knight, as if expecting them to respond in some way. But whatever he was looking for, he seems to find it in their confusion as he chuckles to himself. “All right, I’m headed off to bed. If Hornet tries to leave before I’m up in the morning, tell her that I’ve made her a gift on the table.”

And with that said, the Mask Maker walks off down a shadowy hallway. The Hollow Knight hears a click and shuffling… and eventually snoring. And in time? They too will sleep. But for now… for now they simply run their hand over the edge of their mask, gazing at it. Reflecting. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Godseeker and Lurien have a crisis of faith.

In times of turmoil, people always seek the gods. That is why they are needed, that is why they are tolerated, for all their demands and clamour, for all their selfish wiles.

The Godseeker knows this. Has always known this. The Land of Storms teaches this harshness from a young age, instills this truth onto the flesh. Yes, with stripping winds and empty cliffsides, the Godseeker had it beaten into her skin, one driving raindrop at a time…

Call out to the gods from the bottom of your heart, and they will come. Ravenous and demanding, seeking a willing mind, an eager soul. To offer yourself to them is to let them fill you - to feel the song of their lives pour through you, vibrating through your bones, through the air in your lungs, your thoughts resonating with their minds. To offer yourself to them is to have them care for you, to know that you are ever safe, so long as you attune yourself to that melody and carry it with you. Such is the way Godseeker lives. Just as shes always has. Such is the way the gods lived, in harmony with her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother before her.

At least. Until they did not.

She can remember it now. Waking up and finding the world… empty. Dead, in a way she could not place. Not just dead of people - it had  _ long _ been devoid of them, after all, leaving only the Godseeker, stubborn and isolated in her cliffside home, but dead of Gods, of the divine, of even the faintest glimmer of song.

She remembers begging. She remembers sobbing. She remembers tearing, screaming, clawing at her flesh, anything to spark interest, trying everything and anything that had sparked even the faintest glimmer of divine attention in the past. But there was nothing. No voice, no thought, not even the faintest glimmer of higher consciousness.

So she’d invented the Tuner. Technically heretical, to seek the gods, not with one’s heart and with one’s faith, but with a machine. But, but she had made it, had she not? With the whole of herself, with the whole of her love. With all of her care and devotion and faith. And anyway, it was faster than the old ways, faster than the ways of straining one’s ears and heart for the song of the divine and anything was better than this  _ silence. _

She’d found them, in the end. In a distant place. So many. All at once. Beautiful and shining. Locked away and slumbering. Glimmering like beads of potential. So many, littered on Hallownest’s shores of consciousness, between waking and dreaming, between the living and dead, like shells upon the sand.

It had been so beautiful. It had been. So much.

She remembers… how she had fallen into a coma upon the first time she had tried to call down the gods. How her body became a cage for her consciousness as she fell into a trance - not, for once, because of the silence, but because  _ so many _ answered, all at once.

It was like an endless buffet. There was no way to possibly hold them all in her mind at once, to devote herself to them all at once. So different, so strange, compared to the Gods of Thunder and Rain… She remembers a guilty pleasure, a delight, in being able to pick and choose, casting off the weaklings, to find the strongest - to attune to only the grandest and greatest of gods…

Woe that she was but one Seeker. Woe that none of her sisters could have found this place… Woe upon the traveler that continued, ever more and more, to disrupt her thoughts, to travel in her dreams, in her mind, again and again - that curious mischief-making  _ child! _

Ah… So  _ wrong. _ So foolish and so wrong. So horribly wrong. A fool, standing before the God of Gods, without even knowing it. Feasting on scraps, gorging on trash, in the face of their master.

Even to think on it now… The Godseeker shudders, running fingers down the worked gold of her mask in quiet shame, silently offering a prayer up to the Shade Lord that she might feel the lash of their fury on her back, that the purity of that nail might bite into her flesh and offer her sinful form salvation.

Yes, for though their shape might be that of a child… the Godseeker has seen that true power. Has felt it, pouring through them. Not as a song, but as a physical force. Darkness incarnate, spilling from her mouth, from her eyes, from her ears. She remembers fighting it. She remembers choking on it.

But in the end, she embraced it. And she found peace there. That was probably what saved her, what caused the Shade Lord to grant her mercy. A flower, granted in kindness. She had not understood it. She did not know what it meant. She had even taken it as a token of curiosity, a bribe…

Foolish,  _ foolish! _ Oh, but she had not known. She must truly grovel more. She must truly beg more, must offer more of herself, for forgiveness. She has not done nearly enough…

Anxiously, the Godseeker looks to the spare Godtuner in her hands. It is, admittedly, one rather cobbled together from whatever was in the Junk Pit, but she can hardly be blamed, can she? The God of Gods had seen fit to confiscate her previous one and she’s grown rather bad at seeking out the gods since coming to Hallownest. It’s not really her fault, though - one can hardly swing a nail without hitting something with a divine glimmer…

Still. Even with their form so masked, it is not hard to find the way. The Shade Lord has a power befitting their status, and even trying their best to lay low… their overwhelming strength lies hidden, just beneath the surface, ready to overflow at any time, like a bag stuffed to the bulging with slithering shadows…

A little house. Humble. Not at all befitting the temple her god deserves. She cannot imagine they are being kept their against their will but… perhaps there is a fool who does not understand? No… They  _ must _ know. They must know, so why then, are they not building a temple? Why are there no worshippers, why is there no gratitude, for lifting the plague of light? For the God of Gods, the ruler of all divine…

The Godseeker brings her knuckle to the door. But the silence that stretches out in front of her is  _ mocking. _ She can feel her blood boiling, feel her body trembling.

She cannot bear silence again. Not after contact, not after being so graced with the divine. No… no… The wretched door opens and she sees them, and the man in front of her, the foolish, faithless man, he has the gall to  _ lie _ , and the Godseeker feels her mind break, just a little, from being so close, so close, and yet so far...

And yet, the Shade Lord, the God of Gods, the one who took and gave everything from and to her, who filled her mind with song and her body with void and gave her faith and peace that she had never known, only glances back once, only glances back not even at  _ her, _ their faithful priestess, but at the wretched liar before they drop through the Godseeker’s fingers once more.

In the sound of her own wailing, her own grief, her own screams, the Godseeker hopes that the Shade Lord finds satisfaction. Because no matter how she begs, it does not seem to be her prayers they are looking for.

\--

In times of turmoil like these, there is nothing to do but to seek the gods.

When Lurien awoke, it was to a world of silence, of stillness and of death. His Watcher Knights lay in moldering, sweetly rotting heaps not even a floor below, his butler was gone, and he was simply alone.

Still. His old friend, his oldest friend is still here. As always. Lurien reaches up a satin-tipped finger to caress the side of his telescope, relief washing over him as he sees the delicate instrument is dusty but unscratched. He presses his face, his mask (custom made, lovingly made, with lenses inside to magnify, to further sharpen images - a boon from his king, a kindness from his king, to better allow his favored architect to watch the city he had envisioned come to be) to the lens with the same rush as always, as if no time had passed, as if he had never slept…

But the City of Tears is different from when he was lain to rest. The panicking throngs of people are gone, their corpses washed away by the pristine, eternal rain. The infected are gone, their eerie orange-flecked eyes no longer points of sickening light to glint like distant stars in Lurien’s sight. Instead he sees… what? People. Shuffling, almost just as zombified. Silent and stifled. People waking, as if from a long dream, just like Lurien himself…

And yet, no matter how he looks, Lurien cannot see it. The glint, the glimmer, the faint tracery of light - the fleeting flicker that he had often chased with his telescope, hoping against hope. It wouldn’t be the first time he couldn’t find the Pale King in his own city. But this is… different, somehow. It is not that his lord’s light is absent.

It is that it seems… dead. The city seems dead. Devoid of light. Devoid, in Lurien’s eyes, of hope.

Without realizing it, Lurien finds himself clasping his fist over his heart. This… this won’t do. This cannot do. A city without gods, a Kingdom without the leadership of the divine… such a thing is… madness. A madness only fit for monsters and beasts…

He will not see his beloved city fall. So with footsteps echoing, Lurien stomps his way over to the elevator, hand slamming into the switch even before he settles onto it, heart in his throat.

If the Kingdom will not have a King, perhaps a Queen will have to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freesh agodadoo.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lurien seeks the gods for aid.

Even now, it is impossible not to feel the impression the White Lady leaves on Hallownest. She thinks to hide her powers, but in truth, her powers were always subtle and elusive. She was ever a higher being glimpsed – the pale curve of a branch here, the gentle brush of a breeze there the only indication you had not imagined the power curling down your spine.

It was how she seemed happiest – fading into the background behind her husband's light, hands arrayed on her dress, branches spiring high above her head, hair rippling down like waterfalls untouched. But never did she seem to realize that despite her husband's radiance and her own nature, she naturally outdid him in every way. Such is the curse of wyrms, perhaps.

Or perhaps, Lurien thinks, in his frantically overheating mind, perhaps she did not wish to play the same games as him. For after all, she made only cursory attempts to hide her Higher nature – her divinity. It was always impossible to mistake her for a mortal, even moreso than her husband. He would clutch and scheme, manipulate and calculate - but the White Lady never had any interest in that at all. Where he failed to play mortal from the light creeping at the edges of his soul and the power burning at his fingertips, she didn't even seem to try. His understanding failed at the fragility of human frames, at the weaknesses and limits of mortals… but the White Lady? She did not even seem to understand that mortals were anything but limits, that there could be ever any commonality between them. To Lurien, she had always seemed to be like a tightly trussed sapling – wrapped and bound, just barely squeezed into mortal form, fingers always one moment away from bursting into branches.

Everything from the way that the branches on her head bent suspiciously similarly to the curve of her neck, to the particular habit of the pale twist of her arms that would bend in impossible ways whenever it was convenient to her, there was much rumored about the White Lady. Lurien had heard that her luminous blue eyes would swim and flash like smeared and distorted glass lit from within when she was angry, and that her thin and reedy hair would at times clump like lichen on her head, refusing both comb and brush (Lurien had heard tell, from a handmaid in the hall, that it had only yielded to the touch of water and a song from the Lady herself.) Yes, there was never anything human about the Queen, that much is true. But somehow even with that, she was calming. To see her among her Gardens, among her element, was to know peace and tranquility... even knowing you yourself did not belong there.

Perhaps that is why the King himself seemed content to largely leave her out of his rule? To let her wander as she pleased, attend court as she pleased, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes merely watching from outside a window, eyes wide and expectant somehow. It was hard, on those days, even for the faithful not to feel that He ruled with her blessing somehow - that it was only from her shadow that the Pale King drew strength.

Indeed, it was whispered that earlier in his reign, the King had tried to coax the Queen to attend his courts, to adhere to a more human form, to live in his way and as he liked it. It was said that after this demand, there was a great famine and all the leaves and flowers in the White Palace withered overnight – that the King himself appeared drained and weak for weeks afterwards, while the White Lady looked hale and whole. That as the courts dined on nothing and the people’s stomachs yawned, it was the White Lady who seemed fat and whole, her smile taking on a cruel and mirthful edge...

Lurien had dismissed such rumors out of hand, of course. But in the privacy of his thoughts, as he’d knelt on one knee before his King and his Queen, nearly burning away in the combined onslaught of their radiance and power, in the sheer presence and force they filled a room with simply by existing within it despite his Lord’s best efforts to hide his nature and the Queen’s obvious disinterest, he’d wondered. Could it be perhaps that the Pale King never tried to bend the White Lady to his will not because he did not wish to, but because he couldn’t? Such a thought was literal heresy, and yet… it was hard not to see the tracing of her branches, the obvious way she did little to hide the massive frame of her godly form and to not feel, just a little, that she might be the greater power…

Lurien nearly trips over a rock and turns his attention to the present, looking down at his feet. No, no. Now is not the time to think about his Lady, even if he is standing in her Gardens once again. Even if… even if the rock has turned out to be a…

“...skull.” Lurien says, dully. Without quite understanding why, he reaches down with gloved fingers to pick it up. Light to the touch, but heavily built. Fanged. High cheekbones and articulation. A skull. It half crumbles in his hand, the root that was twining into it hungrily snatching bits of calcium away. Not a Hallownest skull. Mantis? But Mantis skulls are never so thick, never so beastial.    
  
Something has twisted this Mantis, and twisted it far - and he knows what it is. Corruption. Light-sickness. The Orange Plague. Even with minds freed, the physical changes would remain… and he shudders to think of what a terror a Mantis would be, with both body and mind keened perfectly to war...

Lurien realizes he is breathing hard. Looks around himself for the first time. Behind himself. What he had assumed to be mere rocks and pale twigs bleached white by passing winter or sun have been bones, withered and calcified, sucked dry of marrow not by beasts, but by thirsty branches.

The Queen’s Gardens. A graveyard. The Queen’s Graveyard.

Without knowing why, Lurien finds himself laughing at the notion.

It’s only natural, isn’t it? It’s only inevitable, isn’t it? 

Her Garden was never made for mortals. Tangling, choking, dense - twined with her roots and thick with vegetation, it nigh smothers Lurien in his thick robes, every shoot a snare, every vine a noose. It is not malevolence that assails him here. It is simply his own insignificance - his unimportance in the grand scheme of things, the very fact that he is less than an insect in this world of green.

Lurien feels a droplet of sweat sink into the tight fabric around his neck and tries to chase the grin away from his face. He has always loved… no, thrilled, in that feeling. Such is the decadence and bliss of those lucky enough to be close to the gods.

And yet the skull. He is not the first to have been here. He will probably not be the last. Likely, there are others? Others with less… proper intents.

Lurien quickens his steps.

There is no door to her home, no barrier marking the inside and the outside. The very thought is absurd - the White Lady’s home is both and all, of course! But still, he should perhaps show reverence? Offer something? He has never appeared before the divine uninvited before, after all. He does not know the protocol - the rituals, the methods of showing reverence and respect.    
  


Yet when Lurien hesitates at the frame, he hears the White Lady’s voice stream into his mind, as invasive as a root breeching through rock to sink tendrils to fertile soil, as sweet as summer nectar wafting on an early breeze.

**“I would know that fervent mind anywhere. You are Lurien, are you not?”**

“I.” Lurien’s hands wander, waver, twist together under his robes. His mouth is dry. She remembers him? Even as lowly as he is? Certainly he became important, but only later in life, and the fact that his mind, his very  _ mind _ is notable to the Lady, is, well…! Frightening and wonderful in every way! “Er- yes! Yes, my lady. That is I.”

**“Why are you awake, little Dreamer? The seals should never be broken - your sacrifice never undone. Or do you wish to make my kingdom a grave?”**

Lurien pauses at that, wondering at her phrasing and her words alike. Her garden is already a grave - is she playing with him? But more than that - the White Lady… surely she must know? Surely she must have felt it, the absence of light, the draining of competition, the death of the Radiance?

Surely she must know that there is no need for Dreamers, no need for seals, no need for a Hallownest eternal, when a Hallownest living would be far more perfect indeed?

Lurien wanders forward, and almost trips over a corpse. Dessicated, overgrown, but even still, he can tell the noble armor. Dryya. Noble Dryya. She looks beautiful in death as she did in life, which is to say, her armor preserved quite well. He needn’t wonder how she died - his startled step backwards crunches into the brittle bone of a Mantis warrior. There is no mystery here. She died nobly - as she would have wanted. Surrounded by foes, protecting her Queen - like any true Hallownest citizen. Yet for her to have fallen at all…!

“My Lady…” Lurien breathes, panic and bile alike rising in his throat. So much death. Did the Lady defend herself by the barest brush of her bark? Has her power dwindled that far? “The Radiance is dead. There is no need for me to dream.”

Silence. And then, quietly, a response.  **“...Come inside. As I said, my eyes are not what they used to be, and I’d like to take a close look at you, little Watcher.”**

Lurien has never been inside the White Lady’s private refuge before. In truth, before this day, he has never dared to set foot into her sacred grove - has ever balked at the idea of turning a corner and coming face to face with pure elemental majesty personified.

But the room he enters, though skillfully hewn and crafted from living bark and twisted vine is nothing but a disappointment. Barren and empty, devoid of personality, devoid of decoration - (surely a goddess should live among fineries at least?) - it is little more than an an empty room or worse yet -

“A prison?!” Lurien gasps, eyes widening behind his mask as he sees not the pristine perfection he envisioned, not the pearlescent white robes, but his Lady bound from head to toe in chains like a common criminal, her beautiful branches tangled to the ceiling - ohh, whatever villain did this, they did this long, long ago! Lurien feels the blood rush all to his head at once, feels his mind grow clouded as he rushes forward, hands ready to rip and tear in a fervor, to beat the chains away until the gloves around his fingers give way to blood - !!

**“Yes, that is the Lurien I know.”** The White Lady chuckles, her voice ringing out like a bell, rippling through Lurien’s mind like a stone cast into churning waters.  **“You always were ever so prone to indignance and fanaticism, weren’t you, little architect?”**

Lurien’s steps halt. To even have his Lady talk to him is praise of the highest order, of course, and yet, fanaticism is a bit far, isn’t it…? “I-”

**“Remember yourself.”** The White Lady chides, cutting Lurien off sharply - her tone brooking no argument.  **“You are in my Gardens now, and even though I am bound, I am still Higher than you.”**

Lurien feels all the blood which had rushed through him instantly drain out through his feet. He looks up, sees past the bonds that bind, and sees the White Lady, as if for the first time. Even disheveled and diminished, even chained neck to toe, she is right.

To stand before the White Lady is to kneel. Lurien can’t imagine it any other way. Any common man would surely feel the same - any noble man, as well. Surely the only being that could stand before such obvious divinity and be uncowed would be another god? All the same, her eyes are unreadable, her smile enigmatic, and her bindings heartbreaking to look upon as she rests upon her verdant throne - forever encased, wasting away, not quite alive, not quite dead.

“Just tell me.” Lurien breathes, pressing his face to the ground. Wishing he could sink through it with all his heart. Her gaze… by the wyrm, he can feel the scorn burning into his very skin! “Who has done this to you?”

**“Who has done this?”** The White Lady laughs, and her truth is so terrible that it rocks Lurien very nearly to his core.  **“It was by my own hand that I was locked away.”**

“But… why?” Is all he can ask, his face turned up, his voice pleading. But there is nothing he can recognize in the White Lady’s milky blue eyes. Nothing even so human as distaste or bemusement. Just distance, as vast and uncrossable as the rumored void sea.

**“It is not for you to know.”**

And she is right, of course. The will of the gods is ineffable. So why then, is Lurien clenching his fists? Why is the line of his shoulders a solid arc of tension?

**“Is that all you came to for, Dreamer? To trifle me with questions beyond your measure and tell me my husband’s foe is dead?”** The White Lady continues, as if she doesn’t see Lurien on the floor before her, in obvious pain. As if she cannot see the way Lurien’s robes are twisting around him with the way he’s writhing under her gaze, his hood riding up to reveal thin grey locks of hair. Does she realize that she has his mind on a hook? Does she realize that even bound, she’s filling his every nerve with her will? Does she realize how much pain Lurien is in, just to stay in this room, when she clearly does not want him around? Because Lurien’s very soul is crying out in it’s faith for him to remain silent, to crawl backwards with head bowed, until he leaves this sacred grove, just to never feel that gaze alight upon him with such distaste again.

“No I…” Lurien begins, only to flinch as he’s cut off again, the White Lady’s voice lashing out like a winter gale - impatient and impetuous, cutting and cold.

**“Because if that is the case, then you had best be leaving. I do not answer prayers, little Watcher, not even to the likes of you.”**

“I came because Hallownest needs a Queen!” Lurien cries with all the will he has, turning his head up just in time to see the White Lady tilt hers back down to meet his gaze - her glossy eyes turning from disinterest to surprise and then back to cold calculation in a heartbeat.

**“And what makes you think that would be me?”**

“Because--” Lurien gasps, taken aback by her utter refusal, “Because there is no one else! Because Hallownest needs a God! Because… because you are the only one left for the throne!”   
  
The White Lady remains silent - unmoved, perhaps even calculating, and in his haste, in his fear that she might refuse, Lurien bursts out, perhaps foolishly, a thought that has been burning in his mind - has been blazing like a smoldering ember of worry since he awoke.

“Surely you would rather not have  _ The Beast _ take the throne?!” Lurien wails, half frothing in panic. In his mind, Hallownest burns - remade in silk and stone, common men like him cast down into the broken rubble. “A woman of mortal blood - a commoner of brutal bearing to ravage the kingdom in your stead! Because in the Wyrm’s haste, my fellow Dreamer was made the only other possible ruler!”

The silence stretches on, just long enough for the echoes of Lurien’s fear to sound pitiable in the silence of the White Lady’s grove and when then the Goddess speaks, her tone is almost… conciliatory.

**“You say there are no other viable rulers?”** The White Lady murmurs, twisting her head aside to gaze at the wall, milky eyes narrowing slightly in distaste.  **“Oh, that I wish that were true. But the Wyrm’s blood runs strong in the veins of his children, and I’m afraid you will know them in time.”**

“...Children?” Lurien’s eyes go wide at the mere suggestion. Not just children, not just royal runts running around, but demi-gods, little fragments and fractures of his power. Perhaps even full blooded divinities, new Higher Beings born of his union with the White Lady? Surely such a blessing would be celebrated? And yet… the White Lady seems almost filled with bitterness at the notion!

“Please, tell me. How will I know the Pale King’s heirs? Will there be a sign? A marking? Some sort of birthmark or divine radiance or-”

Lurien flinches as the White Lady laughs, the sound strangely bitter and cold.  **“Oh. You will know, little Dreamer! There will be a sign - an obvious show of lineage, such that they can no longer hide themselves…”**

Lurien opens his mouth to ask, but the White Lady is already shaking her head.  **“I will speak no more of this. Leave me now - I will accept no pilgrims such as yourself and hear no honeyed praise. I want only my own solitude in this space.”**

**“Go.”** The White Lady knows Lurien even before he knows himself. He’s already scrambling for a reason to stay, but the White Lady’s gaze is ironclad. There’s no place for him here. There’s no hope for Hallownest here. The White Lady could not lift a finger even if she wanted to.

In shame, in disgrace, defeated and with only a single scrap of hope, Lurien retreats from the White Lady’s Garden, her laughter and her disgust echoing in his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fresh fic, read it or don't! I meant to post this months ago, but life makes fools of us all.


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